


Embracing the Truth (That's Most Certainly Out There)

by trailingviolets



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Choking, Dirty Talk, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Porn with Feelings, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Rope Bondage, Rough Sex, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-04-07 14:27:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4266636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trailingviolets/pseuds/trailingviolets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony has a crush on Steve and Bucky. He doesn't know they feel the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The One Where Tony is in Need of Saving

 

"I know guys with none of that worth _ten_ of you!" Steve's face was a mask of well-bred anger, righteous and brave, in it for the struggle as much as any justice.

It made Tony want to sink lower into the ground, or better yet, to be back fighting hell-bent alien spawn.

Anything but that breathless moment of regret and loss when Steve compared Tony to James Buchanan Barnes. Really, there was no comparison to be made.

Tony was a pretty boy, an emotional leper, and James, a hero. A _war_ hero. The man who raised Steve up to stature. Straight-backed, gorgeous, staring through Tony's shallow eyes and right back out the other side of his soul.

In the moment, Tony gaped up at Steve with a capsized grin faded by their fight, too shocked for speech. Some part of him acknowledged, that was rare.  

Of course it had to be the Winter Soldier that Steve would now gleefully roll him over for, drop his calls and return his weapons for. Turn him into a secondary character, remake the history of Iron Man into something out of a cheesy television serial.

Not to be taken for certain and never to be repeated like the truth.

Tony faltered to notice Capsickle's perfect lips drawn down in disappointment, self-satisfied by such an eager insult. One that had obviously been brewing over time, poisoning the air since they met. Probably decades before, when Steve had the distinct pleasure of looking down on his libertine father.

His evil, torture-enabling father. His father the Hydra technician.

It had been a rough few months in the department of former assumptions.

Even as Steve's belated reparation followed, Tony vowed, _I'll adapt_.

He'd shelter James Barnes under the umbrella of his unending wealth, comfortable from the sidelines and, well, jocular as ever.

He'd learn to be content with catching Steve's smile in flashes. 

Steve's eyes tracing over someone else's body, Steve counting star-freckles like a teenager for his _real_ best friend.

Tony could be a bigger person than what the media gave off. Tony _would_ change. _  
_

\------

Tony _hated_ Red Carpets.

The clattering noise of a thousand spiked stilettos, unwarranted attention from all corners. His own unhelpful notes.

_Yes, I loved Brad Pitt in New Action Movie! I want everybody to buy the merchandise for New Action Movie!_

Sucking in deep lungfuls of humid air, surrounded by chorusing reporters.

_Of course I'm elated for the happy couple to come live at Stark Tower! Of course, they're an example to all of us. True love._

Bowing low to the ground before making his carefully timed sitcom intrusion-exit.

_Of course. Haha, yes, of course!_

Ducking out from under the arc of cameras and lights with a flagging grin. Hands shaking when he stopped to notice. 

Only at half past three in the morning, when the party ended and the embers simmered down, was Tony able to make peace with his loneliness.

Offering it a bottle of old Scotch and his gaunt reflection whispered through the glass walls. 

His happiness would be for them, if it couldn't be with them, however much it stung.

Time works to heal even the scars of death, a therapist told him back in '09. 

Albeit slowly, she'd amended, smiling sadly.

Which Tony took to mean at the time: he'd be dust before he'd ever be happy.

(The sickest part was that this reassured him, trying to claw the arc reactor back into place.)

 ------

 _Captain America_ ranked far superior to him and, no surprise, Tony had long since gotten acquainted with the inescapability of Steve's order to march.

So he obeyed unquestioningly when asked during a team meeting, heavy-eyed and distracted, that the new apartment be furnished for two.

 _Of course_.

Only, Tony felt irrationally hurt. Guessing right in the assumption that it had to be James Barnes, with whom he shared a pained, unwarranted chemistry. 

Maybe just on Tony's part.

When he was obvious enough to stare, which got to be often. Sneaking fitful glances at the man back from the dead and his superhero savior. 

Distracted to the point where Natasha would nudge him out of his head, pushing a drink across the space between her unflappable veneer and his gaping mouth.

If Nat was taking pity, you were sure to be fucked into another life. And Tony realized, he unavoidably was. 

The couple was moving to the Tower, no stopping them, and into his home.

No more kisses glimpsed across the room during get-togethers and champagne socials, a shadow at the periphery of Tony's bravado.

Dried-up smiles and crumpled napkins giving way to real contact. 

Steve and his soulmate would become Tony's wallpaper, his constancy.

In all likelihood, he'd fall asleep to their moans, caught through the chemical walls of the apartment right as he was finally drifting off. 

Unnerved by the procedural tone to Steve's stiff-scrawled memo, Tony sat with Jarvis, frustrated and wringing his hands for the better part of an hour.

Thinking these black thoughts. Trying to persuade himself otherwise.

Eventually he composed an email cheerful enough, bright enough, to promise that he wouldn't be a meddling nuisance.

He'd be good enough, he seemed to want to promise, underneath discussion of amenities, bath towels and organic shampoo.

He'd try to deserve them both, if only as 'honored guests'.

 ------

Humidity lingered in the air like August, but at least it wasn't drizzling on them. 

"Sergeant James Barnes", Tony saluted, nervous and hoarse. Offering a smile so small it couldn't be snatched away.

Hair-in-his-eyes, broken-armed, indomitable _Bucky_ met Tony's desperate glance, all hurt dark smudges and vivid hope.

Tony fought the impulse to retreat, to backpedal until he reached the doors of his apartment and slam them for good.

"So this is your new address." he gestured to the feat that was Stark Tower, trying to sound nonplussed.   

Bucky's eyes followed and he nodded, movements distinct. Almost in awe. He squirmed until Steve put a coaxing hand on his shoulder, bringing him closer.

Close enough for Tony to match their lips together, to _feel_ how well they would fit in the soft twilight. 

Bucky sighed, and the look exchanged between them was one of total fearlessness, impenetrable weight. It brought to mind castles with moats dug high on hilltops. Love that withstood infinite disaster.

Steve melted into his boyfriend's grin, part of _that_ _kid from Brooklyn_  lingering in his crinkled eyes.

How long had they searched for each other? Twenty years? Seventy? Ninety?

In Tony's book it _was_ infinite disaster, longing to know what passed between them, his perfect teeth grinding through several gears. 

After a loaded moment Steve whispered, "That's our host, you've met Stark. Come on, Buck."

Tony left on the outside, watching them enter through the double doors, arm in metal arm.

\------

Nothing would've convinced him Bucky Barnes was living in  _his_  building, had he not been there waiting to greet him.

Not the paperwork, updates, renovations.

Not Steve's steely presence over his shoulder projecting; _you better not fuck this up, Stark_.

Yet, that was nothing compared to the surety of James-Bucky-Barnes turning his head and acknowledging him like he wasn't useless.

Like he was solid on Earth for a second and not a hanging shadow of what could've been before the crash, before Afghanistan.

Before he was stuck as a thin sliver of light seen from the hallway, chasing fantasy while everyone else in New York slept and screwed and _dreamed_. 

Through crushing insomnia Tony came to realize that the longing he felt for Steve was visceral, and alarmingly real.

Real enough to eclipse the moon, and as undeniable as that meant. 

Narrated by Jarvis's stoic rendition of _Love In the Time of Cholera_ , Tony stayed up scouring the corners of his lab, collecting swatches of Steve's shredded uniforms, always more to replace the last as the world was constantly brimming with evil. 

Tony liked to inhale deeply, impossibly so, finding odd comfort in traces of Steve's woodsy cologne.

Fighting the urge to be done waiting for a miracle answer, to just take a couple swigs extra and wake up with his hand down his pants, half-teary but thankfully _spent_. 

The temptation to deal with all his problems in the same way that bore Tony down, made him desperate with want. 

As an alternative Tony would pace across the hours, mind churning with strategies to induce Steve to walk the perimeter a little further, to get Bucky to do more than his perfunctory half-wave when they met by chance in the halls. 

One good thing about Tony Fucking Stark: he gave his undivided attention to a project.

Tony was no stranger to the nickname hopeless, yet he remembered with more clarity by the hour how tenderly Steve's feet switched back and forth as he slow-danced Tony around the emptied ballroom that night, and the night after that when it rained so hard the roof sang. 

It was the nights that melted into weeks Tony remembered, hare-like and sweet. 

He held the memory so close his mind kept coming back to it like he was on a track.

Prolonged by Sam and Nat's snafu'd assignment in Haiti, sharing whiskey and late conversation. Alone together in the vastness of New York City. 

Late May of Steve's first year in the 21st century, his eyes flashing guilty with need, looking to connect in the dark.

All the business of Steve's mission criticism melted into fondness, friendship, laughter.

Praising Tony for his ingenuity, his leadership, the incorporation of the tower.

His slip-soft hips and the way they formed under Steve's fingers, so willingly to boot.

Drunk enough to imagine himself filling Bucky's shoes during that foray into 1940's Noir London, or better yet, being the Bucky of that timeless newsreel. Head thrown back, jaw cocked, sweetness pouring from his smirk.

As anchored to the ground as Steve's arms allowed. Ready to float away on a cloud of relief and the adrenaline still visible in his shining eyes. 

Tony was a little in love with that moment and the both of them in it, even after it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Rationalizing, who wouldn't be excited enough to forget?

 ------

"Morning Stark." Clint was up early. 

"Hope you're not expecting overtime, Barton." 

Tony had just started another round of espresso when Bucky sat down across from him at the communal table, peeling a plum with a throwing dagger.

Giving off wafts of military-grade aftershave as his head bobbed in concentration, smiling with sincerity like he hadn't in so long. Humming, for fuck's sake. 

Clint moved closer from behind the stove, a step away from protective.

Certainly more companionable than anyone had a right to be before noon.

"I overheard what Steve said to you on comm," Clint paused to make sure he had Tony's full attention, "And I thought he was being an ungrateful prick."

Tony nearly spit his coffee in surprise. Bucky still hadn't spoken, but he was listening, which was far from an accident on Clint's part. 

Did he mean the fight Steve picked before Clint left for fuck-knows-where, Colombia and pretended to forget the whole damn thing?

 _I know guys with none of that worth_ ten  _of you!_

"Well..." Tony started. Letting out a shaky breath as quietly as possible. 

Clint turned expectantly, prompting another moment of painful silence. Across the table Bucky stared.

Tony afraid to give up and admit, he couldn't talk about it without puncturing a whole dam of misery. 

"It's okay, Stark," Clint allowed, "I promised Nat she'd have her omelette ten minutes ago."

Tony's eyes screamed gratitude but Barton's frown said it wasn't over yet, even as he turned back to the stove.

Steaming eggs shoveled out haphazardly onto a paper plate.

Clint's lips quirked at the corners, probably mulling over Nat's sleepy reward. He tossed Bucky a wink over his shoulder and Tony was alone. _Well, almost._

The silence continued between them, until it was too much for Tony to take. 

"Sergeant Barnes?" Bucky's eyes snapped up, wild. It took him a second to settle, registering Tony beside him as if by proxy, and seemingly for the first time.

"Sorry," he mumbled, mussed hair falling forward across his face, "Zola used to...bad memories. You can call me Bucky." The shakiness in his voice echoed over the granite and steel; Tony felt a hungry wave of nausea climb up his throat. 

A massive crying fit threatened them both, and Tony berated himself, _be more careful, idiot_. 

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." He stopped suddenly, reaching a split-second decision; the last thing Bucky needed was more sniveling bullshit.

Tony watched himself gesture at the skinned plum trapped in Bucky's metal fist, dripping juice down the cracks.

"Let me make you breakfast."

\------

Steve woke obscenely late, rolling over to find Bucky gone, the heavy imprint of his arm faded to nothing.

Hoping he was with Clint and being watched over, Steve took his shower soap-and-shampoo-at-once, inexplicably nervous.

Stark _had_ promised him Bucky's safety, up and down. Even from his own curiosity, which could be worse than anything.

Steve inferred it from Tony's hungry glances, eyes carding over every inch, that he was really controlling himself.

Wandering closer to the kitchen, Steve heard teasing voices that put him a little more at ease. 

Still groggy from having overslept, he nearly fell on his face at the sight that greeted him.

Bucky sat at the counter, munching on a ravaged plum, juice dripping from his lips. Lips that were upturned, joking.

Coaxed into a smile as antiquated as the idea of having something to smile about. 

Tony, still in boxers and a ripped t-shirt, stood babysitting a heaping pan of eggs, laughing softly at something Bucky said. 

No, no. It was the way he used his metal hand to test a pot on the back burner. Almost absentmindedly popping a taste of the steaming cheese into his mouth. 

Bucky's eyes rolled back into his skull for a moment, the second before Steve cleared his throat, irritation mounting. 

"Where's Clint?" he demanded. Both men jumped, Bucky recovering in an instant. Lethal spy, _duh_.

"At Nat's." Tony answered softly.

"And what are you doing here, Stark?" Tony felt his face flush red, willing it not to totally betray him. It was his kitchen, after all. 

"Making breakfast. Fondue?" He held a spatula out to Steve as an olive branch, eyes lit with hope. 

"At eight-thirty in the morning?" Steve seemed taken aback.

"He's never had it." Bucky finally met his eyes, offering a rediscovered smile and a preemptive shrug. 

"Tony's being real nice, cooking for me like your mama used to."

He spoke gently, taking the lead as a firm non-doubter, soliciting a shared history from his lifelong partner.

Willing Steve not to turn on Tony. Trying to make him see how good he could be.  

For his part, Tony was electric at the fingertips. 

Marveling at the sweet praise and how Bucky must have meant it.  

"He's probably enjoying looking at that arm of yours up close."

Steve always knew just the buttons to push to rouse Bucky's suspicion. Not even Bucky understood exactly, and as Tony watched his face crumble, it seemed almost too cruel. 

Lightning fast and possessed, he snapped his hand back from where it was resting next to Tony's on the countertop.

Silence reined as Tony looked to Steve, wounded.  _  
_

"Come on, Cap. Like we don't all know what it is to be used."

He spoke honestly, still reeling from the loss of Bucky cowering back from him, but Steve was a brick wall of determination.

His expression turning smug after an elapse of silence, sleeves pulled over scars. 

So it was natural that Steve's jaw damn near fell to the floor when Bucky reached out to touch the reactor.

Gently, hesitantly, asking permission with each breath. Like he had given up on getting close, but was painfully aware how good it felt. 

"I know. Your father-"

"Buck-" Steve interjected. Warning written across his face. Tony sucked air, mentally preparing to lose against the same old sins. 

"-always was so kind, too. You remind me of him. Don't lie Steve, you said the same to me last night." Steve was forced to meet Tony's eyes, and shrugged noncommittally, guiltily.

"I did."

"At least when I knew him-", Bucky tried, intent with purpose. Eyes gleaming in Tony's direction, half in the past but wicked all the same. 

"-you know, maybe we can wait until later..." Steve petered off, knowing he was beat by the willful expression on Bucky's face.

"Howard brought me and the Commandos in after Steve rescued us, gave us his makeshift lab off the Alps. He was young, I remember being shocked by that. Someone so young sending idiots like me into battle who could kick his ass", Bucky smiled in Steve's direction, "but he made sure and sent us in with damn good guns. The best. And when I started shaking, trying to keep hold of my shit for the first time after Zola, he took the rifle from my hands, sat me down in his office, looked me in eye, and told me I was gonna make it back to myself, though I didn't feel like it." 

Something in Bucky's face told Tony that he still didn't feel like it, but that he never lost hope all the same. 

Tony was speechless. He barely remembered his father's supposed _kindness_. His smirk, sometimes, in flashes of Natasha's expression right before she killed.

"Thank you", he finally managed, "I didn't know he was your friend."

For the first time in distant memory, Tony felt a flicker of his own hope.

It was the way they were looking at him, with a longing sort of sympathy, almost as if they wanted to kneed the tension from his shoulders, to put a smile back on his lips even if it was only for a moment. 

That had to mean he was salvageable. Good over evil. And that he could be whole, one day, as much as they were together. 

"Buck, I didn't know you remembered," Steve said fondly. The eggs were a poor excuse to avert his eyes, but Tony started to stir again in earnest. 

"Steve, _I remember_. I want to share," Bucky said it so sweetly, so softly, that even Captain America fell victim to his signature charm. He strode to the counter, a breath away from where Tony stood, shuffling between Bucky's parted legs.

They kissed, long, slow, soundless apart from Bucky's fingers slipping against the granite. Tony felt a heady blood-rush of desire, followed by a cataclysmic burst of shame. He was hard over someone else's love story.

Only, he caught Bucky glancing at him, out of the corner of his eye. Searching, testing. Experimental.

The eggs turned out, despite everything. 

\------

"Stark?" Steve asked, voice jarring inside his head, Jarvis lazily delivering his comm feed plus a beehive of static. He could see Captain America crushing skulls less than two feet away, hazy over the fallout of a smoke bomb, stalwart as ever. 

Tony was tempted to rip the wires out and resort to shouting over the cacophony. It was sure as hell good enough in the forties.

Isn't that what they were going for this time around, anyway, with all of Bruce's charts and graphs? A good old-fashioned tactical ground assault?

"Stark!"

"Yes, Cap?" Tony half expected to be reprimanded for his wandering thoughts. Steve had a way of instilling that fear in you.  

"Do you want to come over? I'm making pasta. There's an X-Files Marathon."

Rattled off like it was nothing. Across from him Natasha used Barton as a jump-off, barreling into two agents at once with pre-packaged arrows already lodged in their skulls. She whipped around just long enough to shoot Clint a dirty look. 

He turned to see if anybody else had caught that; they hadn't. 

"Uh, tonight?" Tony painfully aware that he was not the epitome of eloquence presented to the press by the former Stark Industries.

"When else? Look, Bucky's been pushing for it." Tony conceded immediately; how could _anyone_ resist that?

 Silence fell over the comm as Tony paused for a scan.

He'd been busy whacking the foolhardy idiots stupid enough to approach Iron Man, but the latest coming down the line was equipped with something else entirely. 

"Do we have Sam in the air?" Tony asked innocently, spurred for a fight. The last thing he wanted was for Steve to see slimy hands grasping yet another worn-out file.

What was left in the world of the Winter Soldier's years of dedicated service. 

_Placed Asset in cryo. No documented response to second wiping. Did not know name. Did not know target. Further punishment advised._

"Unnecessary, Man of Iron", Thor cheeked, clapping the agent so hard over the head with his hammer that bone burst into a thousand shards. 

For once, Tony was satisfied with that.

He scanned the file, tossing it promptly into an oncoming blast. The information would be useful eventually. 

The memory of how it was acquired, not so much. 

"Stark, you deaf?" Steve took the weight of every mission on his shoulders. It made him older, infinitely less playful. Sometimes, mean. 

"Nah, not nearly _old_ enough for that yet. And yeah, I'll be there." 

The bravado he sapped from battled suited Tony well. It was the only situation in which he ever felt _useful._

Where he knew what to do a good eighty percent of the time. 

"Copy, Stark. Thanks." He took that as his cue to do a fly-over. 

By the end of the hour, all agents had been accounted for, the former Hydra base crackling behind them.

Nobody was injured, except Clint, whose pride had taken a hit when Natasha pulled a ninth inning drive-by with Steve's borrowed shield.

She'd wiped out twenty people on impact, effectively clearing the ground. This time, the dirty look Clint gave _her_  was unparalleled.  

(Barton made it his prerogative to jump into the fray, absorbing the broken bones and bullet wounds destined for Nat. It was nice to see she had caught on.)

Furthermore, it was really freakin' terrific that he would be walking away from this one.  

But they still hadn't rooted out the designated Commander.

Iron Man warily surveyed Hydra's burning warehouse, coming up ambivalent. Readings too scrambled to know for sure. 

If the leader survived, it would be tantamount to sending out smoke signals of failure.

The Avengers had an agreement that someone would always go after the bastard, usually Steve. He had the motivation, Tony recognized, motivation that drew from a well of stocked-up blame. 

"I'll find him", Bucky offered, though it didn't sound much like an offer. Natasha and Steve exchanged a worried glance that was the spy equivalent of drawing straws.

"Buck, I don't think-" but Steve was only quick enough to step on the tail end of Bucky's "I'll be fine, relax" over comm.

Tony watched in silent concern as Bucky dodged into the flames, metal fingers shielding his face from a tornado of swirling ash. 

Tony's ready-made instinct to shelter Bucky from Hydra was spurred by Steve's nervous bouncing, foot to foot, and his new fixation on Natasha's immaculate eyebrows. Trading private intel back and forth like comforting words. 

"Backup IM to South Perimeter." Tony heard himself say, and the suit flew in on Bucky's heels. 

He had to at least make sure the jerk survived until dinner. 

\------

Tony listened intently over his smoke fans, heartbeat kicking into overdrive, haze claustrophobic in every direction.

At this juncture it was the old Tony Stark who would've acquiesced to panic, helplessness. Who would've backed out of the ruined base coughing, hands already thrown up in a not-my-problem shrug. 

The new Tony Stark, born two shaky minutes ago, liked to think he had a greater fight than that in him. Tony absolutely _needed_ to, because there was everything of value at stake. 

Mostly, the meaningful potential to Steve's distracted words.

_Look, Bucky's been pushing for it._

Tony figured, what was Iron Man if not strong enough to push back?

Tony was scaling Hydra's rapidly decaying grand staircase when he heard a shot ring out, adding a silence to the air that only bullets seem capable of. 

Jarvis immediately tapped the in-house infrared sensors, damaged and fading fast. Just like Tony observed one light burning bright, another slowly dimming. 

The steady image of Bucky being ushered out unharmed swept from Tony's mind.

His sights refocused on the likelihood of getting Bucky out _alive,_  of saving the idiot's ass so Steve and Natasha could kill him at their leisure. 

A second shot echoed closer over the hallways, and Tony snatched at the tapered end of Bucky's inhuman, butchered scream.

_Howard brought me and the Commandos in after Steve rescued us, sat me down in his office and looked me in the eye. Told me I was gonna make it back to myself, though I didn't feel like it._

For Tony it finally clicked; Bucky was reassuring Tony in the only language he knew how. Telling him that he may never understand why it happened, but happiness was out there all the same. 

\------

Bucky began to seriously worry that he would cough up a lung, right before he got his ass shot by some Hydra dickhead for the umpteenth time. 

Not exactly the first thing you want to do in rural Ukraine. 

Tony was by his side in a second, ignoring the beeping of the suit and the clang of metal collapsing around them that made it necessary to shout from inches away. 

"Bucky, talk to me!" The fear in Tony's voice caught Bucky off guard. He must give one hell of a damn about statistics. 

"My arm is caught under a beam! He's still alive, I'm shot, and my metal arm is caught under a beam!" 

Bucky tried not to sound panicked, aiming just south of nonchalant. Thinking at the worst, he could pull off flustered.

Tony's oh-for-fuck's-sake look gave away the spoiler that Bucky wasn't winning any Academy Awards. 

The bloody hole in his shoulder padding didn't exactly make a helpful prop, either. 

"Hold on, I'm going to have to detach the whole thing!" Meaning the hefty metal arm that had been Bucky's animated shadow for seventy years.

Bucky felt Tony trying to locate the nerve switch, chalking it up as a gesture a little too sweet for desperate times.

_As they all knew, he could withstand some pain._

In the end Tony pulled the wire that felt the bluest, and Bucky happily informed him that he no longer felt the crush of the beam, or the bullet, or for that matter anything.

_Instant demerol, just cut here._

With Iron Man's force Tony managed to rip the rest of the port away from its casing.

In tandem they scrabbled for the fail-safe catch, Tony finding it fastest with his inborn alacrity for all things dangerous.

Bucky smiled to himself as he broke free. _Fucking Howard's kid._

"Hey, not bad for your first time!"

\------

As soon as Tony pulled him laughing to his feet, Bucky crumpled right back down again. 

"I can't breathe in here!" he choked, twisting part of his uniform into the shape of a mask, improvising with one hand.

Tony's spine went cold with fear, before he knew what had to be done. From then on, it was simple. 

"Here, take the suit!" Tony disengaged from the metal in a heartbeat, watching it meld itself to Bucky like an out-of-body experience.

He briefly turned away, churning with feelings of incompleteness. Longing. _Half an inch away._  

Dizziness lit suddenly through his brain and Tony felt that familiar change in the air.

Silent for a second. Before Bucky started screaming. 

"Tony! Tony, hold on!"

He wobbled on unsteady feet, falling face first into Bucky's arms. A small part of him thinking,  _but isn't this what I wanted_?

Red hands ghosted over his chest and came away redder. Bucky shook him then, _hard_. 

In his jostled ribs Tony felt a blooming numbness, but it was strangely distant and seemed to be  _not exactly there_. 

His vision shimmered as he relived the surreal epiphany, _I've been shot?_  

Welcoming back Steve's barking in his ear like an old friend. _The comm wire_ , logic whispered. 

He hadn't ripped it out after all.

"Tony, Tony, copy me, fuck, fuck, Tony!" Steve shouted, and he felt an inkling of something familiar stirring his awareness. 

_(The mouth on him anymore, honestly, Nat, I don't know how you handle it.)_

Bucky shook Tony again and his face materialized out of the smoke surrounding them, suit visor clawed aside. 

"I swear to god, _don't you dare_  Tony Stark!" In his voice the same stranded desperation as Steve's.

Darkness spun out from the edges of his vision, and before Tony could react there was no coming back from it.

His brain stuttering over the same disjointed thought. 

_They're gonna be real pissed at getting stood up._

 

 


	2. The One Where Bucky and Steve Go at It

 

_Stark Tower. Fortieth Floor. No difference from night with the shades drawn._

The sharpness in Tony's side asserted itself, finally, leaning into him like a parasite.

_It's a sign of life, right, that there's something left to take?_

"Tony? Tony!" 

Eyes fluttering open, grappling to focus. 

It hardly helped Tony to believe he was awake, looking down at Bucky's cut-up hand in his.

_Steadying, familiar even. Just as warm as he imagined._

"Oh fuck. Thank god."

Tony fleetingly yearned to be up and walking, equipped to dish out fury and relief in equal measure, the same as Steve was somewhere.

_Probably elated that it was Tony's bullet, not Bucky's, carving a hole in his nightstand from the walls of a mason jar._

Just as Tony was secretly lucky to be right where he found himself, skirting consciousness in a drafty paper gown. 

Gritting his teeth at Bucky's wrenched-from-inside sobs, both more than willing to forget what was past, but unable to move on.

Rooted to the spot by the uncertainty of just how bad it could've been. 

For Tony, the feeling had lasted years.

Vaguely, he felt tears cross his face, knowing in Bucky's case, the grief was for a wasted lifetime. 

Silence elapsed, moments to minutes, and for once it wasn't fought with any meaning.

The unexpected realization _damn, he's so lovely like this_ fell into Tony's blank mind just as Bucky was collecting himself to speak. 

"Tony-"

"James Buchanan Barnes," he amended, "thank you for saving my life."

A shared inch of fondness, somehow fitting both their faces. Understanding that he fully intended to save a life worth living. 

"Your dumb ass better have Steve on the phone in a hot second, Tony Stark. He hasn't slept in a week."

\------

"You killed him, though, right?" 

All Bucky really wanted was a muffin. Maybe a hot shower on the side. He'd just sat vigil for _a hundred and ninety fucking hours_.

No sniper can be trained to resist eating the buds off the sympathy roses, at that exposure. 

"Yeah, shot him in the back with the fancy suit." 

"Did he scream?" Bucky straightened from a barely-standing slouch at the counter, chagrin in his eyes.

"Did you hit your head?," he asked, and Tony paled instantly.

"Sorry, it's just. That sound you made, the scream. I can't stop thinking about it."

"Oh, the Hydra cheer? Yeah, just another souvenir from my fan club." 

Logically, Bucky respected that a massive cocktail of horse tranquilizers would turn anyone a lighter shade of green, make them into someone who uncharacteristically _had to go lie down, sorry_. 

Still, he couldn't help wondering if it got personal in Ukraine, when Tony backed out of the room shaking.  _  
_

Experience told Bucky that emotional turmoil in every direction was a sure sign of playing the wrong game. Steve showed him as much through his careful hesitations. The endless parade of guilty pre-mission locker room speeches, the snatched glances of worry during dinner and drinks.

Becoming an active victim of what Natasha jokingly called 'Steve's world famous heart-to-hearts'. 

_Buck, you know I don't love saying this. But if it's too much, we can't put you out there. I talked to Stark, he'll fly you home first class..._

Wanting to ask just once, how the hell do you think I escaped in the first place?

An Asset was an asset, had been Pierce's mantra. To the Winter Soldier it had always been, strong is stronger. 

Somewhere between them Bucky continued to exist, coming apart at the seams but always halfway to reality.

Secreting with him over seventy ugly years the dream of a freedom, of a Fourth-of-July-on-the-boardwalk worth dying for. One that kept him hanging on through endless little deaths. Something bigger than Hydra itself; something with more meaning. 

No trigger code held the key to that peace of mind, Bucky wanted to say, when Steve expected him to be split by reminders of the past. 

Everything they did to him seemed smaller and smaller in comparison to what he'd found on the other side.

\------

"Put it out."

"What, aw, come on. It's been a week."

"I said put it out." The authoritative tone in his voice told Bucky they weren't playing darts in the rec room. Steve meant business, and that heralded both dangerous and lovely things. 

Besides, Bucky allowed. It had been a damn lonely week. 

"Make me, Rogers," his smirk betraying a deeper challenge than the case of a bad habit. 

In the space of a few strides Steve was in Bucky's space, notching up the tension with a careful finger at the apex of his pulsing throat. Bucky felt the stress running out of him like a lanced wound; he'd craved and itched in impossible places for so long without knowing this to be the cure.

Almost, he had forgotten how well they fit together, along with the rest of his memories. 

It's not like they filled out worksheets or anything, but Steve's ramped up attention on him always led to them rooting out the real issue, even if Bucky didn't have the first clue in hell himself.

This time, he had a pretty good idea.

"Are you listening, James? This is me stopping you from destroying yourself. Because I love you, you're gonna put out that goddamn cigarette and go find a basket to weave."

Defiantly, and with a hint of his classic _Stevie-why_ pout, Bucky did as commanded. Its petty flame died against the stone wall of Stark Tower's penthouse balcony, whipped by the wind in a furious downward spiral until Bucky lost sight of it, curving over the horizon. 

Bucky leaned against the wall flippantly, shoulders pushed back to hide the curve of his empty sleeve, a hint of skin between layers at his groin. 

Eyes gleaming feral around the edges and so ready. 

"Are you saying you want me to weave your basket? Right here?"

Relief seized in his chest when he realized, the missing arm was the last thing Steve seemed interested in, glance flicking over Bucky's body. 

"You're provoking me today, sweetie, and if you keep doing it I'm going to give you exactly what you're begging for."

But not without making me beg some more _,_ Bucky's thoughts supplied _._ Surveying Steve's tented sweatpants with a new urgency. 

How hard did he have to be to bust seams? Was that a serum thing?

"And what 'm I beggin' for now, Stevie?" Bucky never hesitated to dust off the Brooklyn accent when they got like this; it was the sweetest weapon in his arsenal. 

Steve reapplied himself to Bucky's throat, standing so close now Bucky could inhale to the bone his deep woodsy smell that had been so weird and wonderful back in 40's Brooklyn.

Their eyes locked; Steve's an unreal tinge away from _black_. 

"You're askin', and not very politely, for me to put you on your knees, where everybody and their mama can admire your tight little ass, and make some goddamn use of your smartass mouth."

Part of Bucky balked then at that old Avengers joke, because Steve was so unbearably hot when he cursed. 

"S' if you could put me anywhere, punk."

"That sounds an awful lot like a challenge, James."

Before Steve lost all decorum, Bucky was firmly known as  _James._ A holdover from when he was a kid, getting scolded by their mamas for stealing Stevie oranges and drawing pencils from the corner store.

Later, after the lines on everything blurred a little, he'd go back to being _Buck, Bucky, oh god baby you're so warm_...

"Cours' it's a challenge to you. You're always lookin' for a damn fight, Stevie." 

With his words Bucky felt a shift in the air. They were no longer _being-dirty-on-the-balcony-what-if-someone-sees_?

Steve pushed indelicately between Bucky's legs, cock a tight pressure on the inside of his left thigh, and abruptly they were _put-your-hands-on-me-two-minutes-ago-yeah-right-there-don't-care-who-sees-don't-stop-oh-god-fuck-me_  involved. 

"You're forgettin' that I don't need to do fuck-all to wind you up like a toy. Fight you? You're creamin' your pants just lookin' at me." 

That much was true, Bucky's dick insisted.

Doing little to resist when it felt so good to just _rub_ and be rubbed up against, need so real he could taste.

Wanting Steve rutting between his legs, wanting to feel the contrast of how painfully  _hard_ he was and how _soft_ Bucky's thighs were right at the peak of that furrowed little gap, softest place on his body and warmest too, right after his ass.

Bucky wanted with an indescribable direness bordering on tears, wanted Steve to use him from the outside in, to chase away the nagging doubt in his mind that it was _all your fault, worthless_.

"I'm done now, I want to do what you're askin', whatever you want. Stevie, _please_." 

The next day he would be mercilessly teased about how easily he capitulated. Steve prodding around until Bucky grudgingly admitted, _there's just no resisting you, Rogers_. 

Only for right now they were rocking together against the rough stucco and Bucky simply couldn't bring himself to give a damn beyond that. Cautiously, he brought Steve's free hand (the one not choking him) down between his legs, nowhere near his dick, just feeling. Hoping he'd get the hint through Bucky's sweats, he was hungry to be fucked _right there_. 

"S' that's what you want, baby? That what you're tryin' to tell me all this time? You're so fuckin' obvious, Buck. People in  _Queens_ know how much you want my dick between your legs."

Steve was enjoying abusing his power over Bucky way too much, and if he came just from listening to filthy talk, it'd be Steve's own damn fault. 

"Yeah, yeah they do. S' not like I _care_. They're all prob'ly pissed at you for dawdling around."

"Is that so?" Steve's breath in his ear was making his knees shake ever so slightly with the effort of holding him up. 

"Yeah, damn right s' true."

Imperceptibly Steve shifted until he was behind Bucky, thumb cradling his throat, the other hand cushioning the thrusts of his dick between Bucky's eager legs. 

"Language, James. Do I have to make you wait even longer?" At that Bucky _groaned_ , ass grinding almost painfully back into Steve. They both knew then that there would be no fooling around.

"Alright. What do you say?"

"Please," Bucky supplied, within the space of a second.

Steve grinned with teeth Bucky could feel pressing against his neck, and then gently he was being pulled back through the sliding door and into their bed. 

Their gorgeous four-poster bed that still reeked of Tony's metallic cologne and expensive lavender shampoo. 

Which was really the plan all along, though neither was ready to admit it in so many words.

It drove them crazy with want feeling the ghost of him on their skin, _so close_ , and opening their eyes to find an empty room.

Even the roses had run for their lives. 

Steve sat up, bringing Bucky with him by a coaxing fistful of hair. They had both been buried in the same rumpled pillow, a breath away from _fighting_ over it.

The sudden distance in Steve's eyes told Bucky that this was a problem way before he came into the picture. He sighed slowly, willing Steve to unclench his teeth.

"Hey, Stevie. Wanna tell me a story about all the things we're gonna do to him to when he's healed?"

The jerk of Steve's cock against his leg swept all doubt from Bucky's mind. 

Maybe he had been willing to honor such a strange, silent request because he truly loved Steve.

And maybe, a different part of Bucky's brain supplied, he wanted Tony back in their bed, too. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only complete chapters will be posted from now on, sorry for the confusion. Love ya all!


	3. The One Where Tony Has Great Timing

 

"Stark, wake up. Sam's flight got delayed, so they sent me to babysit you." 

Natasha's wolfish grin wasn't exactly the best foreplay to consciousness.

Reluctantly, Tony pushed into a sitting position, seeing stars that radiated from the tight-wrapped wound that was his right side. 

"What the hell, Nat?"

"Like I said, Steve worried you'd rip your stitches or something."

"So he sent you, oh lethal spy?" 

They appraised each other; Natasha, socked feet swinging to the floor, acting uncharacteristically cheerful given the circumstances.  _Glowing_ , Steve would eagerly supply.

The same endearment Steve used to describe Bucky's 'progress', when he found himself in mixed company and unable to elaborate. 

_Doesn't he look good lately, Clint? Like he's settling in. It's easier with the two of us, I'll tell you, takes the stress right away..._

"You could do worse", Nat opined. To that he heartily agreed. Nodding absently, head still lost in the clouds. 

Seeing the inevitable flash-forward of Barton trying to relate through Tony's newfound propensity for getting shot off guard. Followed by Thor's poor pass at casual conversation, usually involving the Comedy Central stand-up routines he touted as mortal culture.

Bruce's understanding silence, which was often worse comfort than everything else combined.

Tony hated to imagine that anyone actually knew what was going on in his head. 

"Yeah, options are slim." Nat's eyes flickered over his face with something akin to sadness. Tony itched for her to change the subject, fingers pulling threads from the duvet with an autonomy all their own. Stilted grin pained and painted-on.  

Imagining all that was included in the clammer of the world at that exact moment, apart from his insecurity and the clapping of the wind on the walls. 

People laughing, crying, former Hydra officers languishing in the ground. 

_Steve and Bucky sharing their bed after such a long hiatus, doing what they did so well with just their eyes._

"You're not half bad yourself, Stark. I admire your...style." Gesturing to the indigent bullet still on display. 

"Gotta have a sense of humor to make it through the war."

"I'll drink to that any day."

She settled next to him, squirming under the covers, and they exchanged a spontaneous,  _we're-about-to-break-the-rules_  grin.

Natasha's dark new curls tickling Tony's arm in a way that was both sweet and unbearably cocky, cajoling him out of his head. 

They wheedled Jarvis into hacking Putin's security network, replacing what was probably top-secret Soviet intel with thirty-four years of _Mr. Jockstrap Miami_ audition tapes. They ate Doritos produced from Natasha's never-ending shoulder bag and played three rounds of a strategically-compromised backgammon game. 

They sipped wine coolers and watched "cats falling off sofas" on Youtube, right up until Natasha was late for dinner, swearing and grabbing her boots.  

She shimmied to the doorway apologetically, conceding after a moment's pause, "you don't seem that sick, really", over her shoulder. Studying Tony's face for a rushed heartbeat before doubling back to his bedside.

As if by rout Nat smoothed down the duvet, offering Tony the lightest of forehead kisses, only to be interpreted as such if he wished. 

"Take care of yourself, Stark," and she was gone. 

For Tony it was an inexplicably merciful kindness, to be touched unselfishly. Most of all by Nat, who was so famously a hard nut to crack, self-contained and spiny to a fault. 

 _To be cared for as a friend and not a signed check._  

An old gratitude somehow vindicated by trauma refusing to die, poisoning the air around him.

In a crowded room, Tony surmised, the Avengers could feel it hanging over his exact coordinates.

_Mr. Stark? About the late Director and Mrs. Stark's condition, we regret to inform you..._

_Is it cool if I take a picture with you?_

_I want this, I want this. Don't waste it. Don't waste your life._

Separated by a long stretch of soul-searching. Time in Cambodia. Redesigning the suits. Rhodey's departure from Stark Industries, then Pepper's, their clipped voices on the phone, Christmas and his birthday, if he was lucky.

Then the worst by far, because Tony had just started to _want_ again. 

_Take that suit off, what are you?_

Wanting now to ask a choice question of his own. 

"Jarvis? Would you relay a message to Captain Rogers for me?"

_\------_

The wretched skin of Bucky's ported shoulder healed quick, chokecherry scars edged with fading bruises. Bucky's shivered delight, ingrained somewhere deep, as Steve's tongue ran across it for the twentieth time. 

It'd been half an hour, and still the only forthcoming phrase was " _right there!_ "

Steve wondered if Bucky would balk too much if he suggested some creative brainstorming. 

Abruptly Steve cleared his throat, causing Bucky to startle earnestly, irritation evident in his expression that he'd dared to stop at all.

"What now, Stevie?" A gentle hitch at the nickname, almost protective, even in these moments of breathless clarity. 

"Maybe he thinks about us, when he's doin' this?" Gesturing downwards with an expression akin to guilt. 

"You wish! Hell, _maybe_. He has eyes just as good as the next guy." 

"We sort of just ducked out on him, Buck, maybe we should've-"

Interrupted by Bucky's hand searching between his legs, never afraid to manipulate the pleasure-seeking part of Steve that he fed so well. 

"You sayin' you wanna imagine him doin' that, and imagining us while he's at it?" 

Steve sucked in a sharp breath, cock twitching impressively, slipping in Bucky's hand, too slick with precome and spit to abide those insistent fingers pressing  _just_ on the far side of pain.

"Oh, that got you goin', huh?"

Just like that, so easy, they were knee-deep in fantasy, blown eyes and wide apart hips.

Taking on the predictable roles in their own private game. 

Steve smirked, half agility and half surprise, effortlessly flipping Bucky over onto his stomach, punctuated by the turning of the mood in the room to utter filth. 

"Ready for what I'm about to tell you, James?"

\------

Of course he was ready; Bucky liked to think he was one of the few _born_ ready. 

"Duh, Steve!" Abbreviated by a powerful slap centered just on the curve of Bucky's ass. Inches of pale thigh caught in the crossfire and smarting red. 

Steve's desired effect to make him desperate for it right between his legs, to reiterate the consequences of such a shameful request that he'd made what seemed so long ago. 

"Are you questionin' my authority, James? Need reminding who's on top, baby?" Bucky only shook his head. He knew. 

"What was that?"

"Not with your knee halfway up my ass." As always, Steve called his bluff. Pushing said knee into the cleft separating Bucky's thighs until he was huffing air and aching _so fucking much_ from getting ground down into the mattress. 

Easy in that position to tuck his head into the sheets and just _smell_. The sweetest part being, Steve must've considered that in stride.

How the vision of Tony's fitful sleep would return to them both, open for admiration as it wasn't the first time. The bold lines of his beard softened by neglect, the anxious curve to his wrists, palms drawn forward in an inadmissible hold me gesture. 

How they had begged and pleaded to be allowed to show their appreciation, _let him stay with us, if he's going to be okay_. Each sneaking forehead kisses which they later confessed, panicked, to their respective right-hand men. In Bucky's case, Natasha.

"Is that any way to talk to your commanding officer, James? Now, as I was saying..."

Steve shuffled forward until Bucky felt a solid weight teasing his thighs apart. Taking the better part of a tense minute before the position clicked and Steve moaned, open-mouthed and eager, Bucky's answer a prolonged whimper against the bed.

Hands fisting in the sheets on either side of them, more lost to reason with each thrust of Steve's hips, forcing Bucky's cock to scrape over the mattress, driving him wild with the unrequited need to get friction and move.

So distracted he almost missed the fact that Steve was talking, breath coasting into his ear. No, wait. He had started _narrating_. 

"Tony'd be the kinda lightweight to go out for mood music, he'd want it dark so he wouldn't have to look in any of his mirrors and you just  _know_ he's scammed a few projector-worthy pictures of us from the cameras in the gym."

One thing was for damn sure; Steve could set a scene.

"So he'd start slow, just thinkin' about the way your abs flex when you kickbox, that pretty little determined face you make like you're getting head right there on the mats." 

Their skin was chafing roughly, both consumed by conflicting emotions and the power behind them. Yearning and hope; agitation. Pain. Overwhelming arousal.

Bucky's mind churned with an inebriation he hadn't felt in seventy years. Realizing in a rush, _this is what it means to be on fire_. 

"And he'd need more, you bet your fucking ass, his dick would be _trembling_ putting two and two together. He'd make us into downright _sluts_.

Slap a collar on you and have me drag the leash around, taking little nips from your sweet ass whenever I pleased. You'd be soaked to the balls by the end of the day, but he'd make you lick it up from his expensive floors like a good boybefore you could touch yourself."

They explored this in their darkest hour, as a last resort, when Bucky wanted only to be the Asset and not to have to _feel,_ make decisions, _be_.

It called him back to a life where he was _Bucky_ , gave him something tangible to hold onto.

Loving every reminder that he was unequivocally _Steve's_ to use and, eventually, to bring home.

"Think he'd imagine us in public? That part'd be true enough, he's probably seen us making time on the balcony. That'd have him pantin' and wrenchin' his shirt right over his head, needin' to be naked just in case we decided to give him a free show.

Me down on my knees, sucking you good and hard into my throat, making you moan something awful, screaming my Christian name to all of Manhattan. I'd have to gag you just to get you to shut up and even then the _sounds_ would be unbearable."

Incorporating the embarrassing fact that yes, James Barnes was causing a scene. Only in this lifetime, he wasn't about to answer to anybody for it. 

"God, Stevie, keep goin'!"

Earning himself another slap, less reprimanding, more approving. Proud probably of the toll Steve could take on Bucky's body with just his words and his voice, the half-forbidden feeling of his cock pushing where it hadn't been before. 

"He'd go crazy, thinkin' of us sharing him like a toy. How we'd push our fingers into his mouth, takin' that smug face and makin' it useful. Giving it to him slow the first time, 'til he warmed up and started beggin' us for more. Sweating and swearing and being _real_ _indecent_.

Taking a page outta your book. Two of a kind, you's. Both sinful as hell when you smile, can almost see the dirty thoughts you're thinkin' behind those pretty eyes. I should tie you to each other and see what you do with that." 

Bucky's body fell off the cliff into pleasure before he could even mull that one over. The sheer image of it took him by storm. 

Steve's accompanying thrusts were particularly punishing, seeming to _fill_ him from the inside, though nowhere near _that_ spot.

"Want you to take us both," he gasped out.

Obviously those words were the exact right ones, 'cause the desire was running out of Steve like a fountain.

Head thrown back, spurred into cursing by Bucky's own inspired string of profanity, panting over every syllable. 

"Fuck, fuck, oh baby, Buck, goddamn, your thighs are _tight_ , oh _fuck,_ baby!" Steve's voice lit a full octave as he spilled. 

Bucky felt the rapid warmth of Steve's come trickling down his legs, and nearly came again from the filthiness of it _._

After a moment of stillness Steve tugged Bucky into his arms, all butter and smiles and the pretend assumption that no, he hadn't just worked them both into a frenzy over someone who was effectively their coworker.

Before either could break their idiotic grins long enough to catch a good breath, much less talk, Jarvis intervened.

To say it startled Bucky would be gross hyperbole. By now he was used to helpful interjections from the A.I. After a nasty altercation with something called an ATM, he even welcomed them. 

"Sirs, Mr. Stark has a message for Captain Rogers that he wishes me to relate."

"And you waited 'til we were done fucking, huh?" Steve giggled, shushing Bucky almost desperately, hand hovering near his mouth.

"Jesus! Sorry, Jarvis. Don't record that. Yeah, you can tell us."

"Mr. Stark asked, and I quote sir:  _Does the offer still stand? Thinking of you two."_

Steve shot him a glance that could've ignited a swamp, and in that moment Bucky swore Jarvis would be rolling on the floor, if he had a sense of humor closer to that of his creator. 

Bucky hastily collected himself, assuming a concentration that would've sent a lesser man than Steve running for cover. 

"Tell him: _H_ _ell yeah, get your ass over here tomorrow night, we'll make up for lost time..._ ," he paused a beat too long, hearing in the air that Jarvis was wondering whether to disengage. 

"... _and we were thinking about you, too._ "

 


	4. The One Where They Eat Spaghetti

 

"Is this a gay rummage sale or...?"

A veritable Gap outlet was spread out on the hardwood, vaguely arranged by color and respective super-soldier.

"Don't be glib, Nat. Have either of you seen a blue shirt that does this thingy at the top?"

Steve gesticulated in a way that could've been viably interpreted as both  _my dick is huge_ and, less entertainingly, _racerback_. 

"What, you gonna flash him your deltoids and hope he melts all over his pasta?"

Managing to telegraph in her voice, now they were really testing Nat's patience for _love shit_. 

"Worked well enough on Clint", Bucky muttered, smirking.  

Steve and Natasha's eyes met in the amused understanding that it was lucky she adored the fool.

Wrestling his boyfriend onto the bed in their typical conjoined-twins embrace, damp hair papered to his shoulder.

Steve recognizing without needing to check that she'd just showered, smelling uncharacteristically _heavy_ , like that time they got ambushed on 42nd and her gym bag had exploded in his lap.

"Get a leash for your boyfriend."

"Already have one", Bucky supplied cheerfully.

Barely looking up from where he was pawing through a mound of socks, frowning meaningfully. 

" _Gee whiz_ , Steve, you'd think someone from _The Land Before Time_ would have a better grasp on common decency." 

Natasha's tone may have been punishing, but her eyes were dancing with barely-concealed mirth.

One beautiful thing about Nat's obsession with ever-increasingly intel; it extended to knowing everything possible about the lives of her friends. 

All the better for her to protect them, Steve surmised, and so it was with her that the Avengers shared and shared alike _._  

"Love you too," came Bucky's distracted response, in on the joke and damn charming to boot.

If she didn't enjoy the thought of him with Steve so much, Natasha might've taught the smart ass a few lessons in behaving herself. 

"Fashion show, you two. And make it quick. Clint's waiting in the lobby."

\------

Alone on his penthouse balcony, the _Mr. Stark_ of Jarvis's summons was a sip away from willfully buzzed.

A necessary evil, he figured; Tony's arrhythmic heart was interpreting tonight as a DEFCON one. 

"I hate to be a bother, Mr. Stark, but really, it's time to head out."

"You know what, Jarvis, you must've gotten your time-sensitivity from your mother."

Tony swirled his glass idly, looking out over the Tower's landing deck. Wondering in the world all of this had come to pass. 

"As always, your grasp on affairs while under the influence is impressive, Sir."

"What can I say? It's a family talent."

"You know how much I enjoy reiterating the words of your numerous therapists, Sir."

Punctuated by Tony's loud scoff, because no human on Earth could ever aspire to the patent A.I. sincerity. 

"But as instructed, I will continue to inform you that, considering the time elapsed between their message and now, you're already fashionably late."

_"...and we were thinking about you, too."_

Some part of Tony hoped beyond the knowledge of experience that it wouldn't be just spaghetti missing him if he decided to cop out now. 

 _Which he still could. Not that he was going to._  

Carding through the events of his life and coming up empty for a time when more had been at stake for simply _Tony Stark_.

Figuring, _this is the juncture that loneliness will drive you to._

The blank choice between intimacy and isolation that doesn't exist except in fiction, a single night with the power to switch everything around. 

No small bitterness resurfacing that Iron Man had always been more of a _story_ than a _person._ _  
_

Marketable, of course. Lovable, not so much, and self-determined, never.

 _Change comes from inside_ , Bruce had told him just yesterday, absently rattling the bullet in its jar. 

_Think of it in terms of this, Tony. You're almost healed now, so logically it's time to get back out there._

"Jarvis? I'm going now."

_\------_

Steve fluttered with a nervous energy more suited to the close moments before combat.

He'd been staring into the burner flame for at least a full minute when Bucky came barreling in, looking just as painfully casual. 

"How's it showin'?" he asked, peering into a covered pot with some concern.

"Nobody's _showed_ yet." Slipping his arms around Bucky in a needy gesture. 

"Would you relax? Knowing Stark he's probably pre-gaming."

Steve had to concede, that was more than mildly in character.

In fact, the only thing keeping Steve from getting respectably trashed himself was the fact that he physically  _couldn't._

"He does like his sauce sweet, right?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know?"

Steve's nose screwed up, a sure sign that he was about to trot out some piece of ancient history.  

"You were the one who shared a plate of _spaghetti-goddamn-bolognese_ with Howard at the '42 Corps Ball."

A quick smirk emerged out from under Bucky's tense eyebrows as if to say, he knew exactly what kind of sauce Howard liked. 

"I'm always pleasantly surprised _either_ _of us_  can remember enough to fight about this lame crap." 

Steve resisted Bucky's attempt at humor, pushing forward with another unsuccessful try at channelling Captain America's icy authority.

"You've _gotta_ know these kinda things, James. Tony made you _fondue_ , for Christ's sake." 

Not to say he was jealous. Just, when was the last time Steve'd been wined and dined? The previous century?

_My specialty dented-can soup, oyster crackers on the side, an extra couple for you Stevie, to get strong._

"We talked for _ten seconds_ before you interjected yourself," Bucky said, softening when he felt Steve's arms tighten around his waist.

"And you know he's gonna love it just 'cause you made it, Stevie."

They condescended to kiss each other, carried away by a surge of excitement bordering on pain.

"Buck, you know whatever happens, I'm-"

"Really, Stevie? Do ya have to say it _every_ time?" but Bucky was blinking away contradictory tears.

Smiling wide in memory of the kids they were once, just that long ago.

_The thing is, you don't have to. I'm with ya 'til the end of the line, pal._

Breaking the tension with laughter, same as they used to, only now there were wrinkles starting in at the corners and half decent rugs on the floors.

"For the record, Buck, I'm only quotin' your cheesy-"

"-sirs, I hate to interrupt, but Mr. Stark is currently en route."

Instantly the room turned darker, more urgent. 

Tinged with the potential of Tony's lavender smell to someday permeate  _everything_. To become a part of home.

They gaped at each other for a stunned moment, thinking the same thoughts, before Steve cleared his throat, discreetly rearranging himself in his boxers.

"That's good, Jarvis, cause we're just about ready."

 


	5. The One Where Bucky and Steve are Con Artists

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting: oh, the terror! This chapter will never be all I want it to be, so I'm just going for it! :) More to come!

 

Tony was nearly knocked off his feet by the force of the opening door, which didn't do anything to credit his current sobriety.

"Hey! Can I get you a beer? Steve says we're startin' while the food's still hot."

And just like that Tony was swept up in Bucky's orbit, ushered to the candlelit kitchen he himself designed.

Namely, designed for two super-soldiers of dubious intent who probably took it for granted that the countertops were infinitely fuckable.

Tony happened to glance up from his drink as Bucky reached for a glass with the arm that wasn't there, fumbling in confusion. 

Correcting himself as a second thought and with an expression of mortal shame.

Worse yet, Bucky listed to one side in his swaggering walk, seemingly oblivious to any difference, body the one unaccustomed to Tony's split-second amputation.

A bolt of self-hate shivered through Tony's chest, and suddenly yes, he was craving more booze. _Please._  

Wondering if he really did seem naked without a goddamn suit of armor _._

"So, wanna show us that scar?" 

Steve trying to sound casual from his stance at the stove, looking a little too relieved Tony turned up at all.

"Sure, why don't I gross us all out before dinner?" Voice ringing over-exaggerated in his own ears, humiliation rising with the slight jump of Steve's eyebrows.

"Come on, please? We've waited patiently and all," Bucky with a persuasion as sweet and cool as silk. 

Self-consciousness forgotten, Tony swore internally that the jerk knew what he was doing, that he enjoyed it even, making him comply. 

"Alright, but Steve as witness, you were warned."

Gingerly Tony lifted his shirt and the wife beater underneath, revealing an angry clump of dead tissue that radiated from point-of-contact like a star.

Bucky's flesh hand hovered in the air for a beat, as if giving Tony permission to shrug away, before it ghosted over the contusion, feather-light.

Reverential, almost the same as Bucky's haunted nod the day they were introduced.

"Nat has one on her hip she got tattooed with your signature," Tony said.

Cursing himself, because _of course they would know that, genius of your era_.

"That one's pretty too, looks like a heart when you're lyin' side by side with her." 

Bucky thought his bullet wound was _pretty_? 

Was anyone who'd snuggled Black Widow and survived even allowed to use the word _'pretty_ '?

Tony felt a good-natured laugh bubbling across the table, before he could even consider the implications of saying that out loud. 

Bucky covering his mouth in a way that meant he was equally baffled and amused, Steve watching on with shining eyes and his classic half-smile.  

Lost in a companionship that had taken ages to form since the last time it'd been snatched from them, and...proud.

Proud that he had managed to milk a laugh, especially when he was teasing roughly two-thirds of the kitchen about their bromance with Nat. Proud to for once be part of the right thing.

Wondering why they were so giving about letting him bask in the light for a moment, eating up their approval.

 _Moreover, why did it feel breathlessly like Bucky's gentle-whispered_ I've got you _?_

_Stroking the debris from his burned-filth hair, eyes laced with desperation. Trying to say one last important thing as the warehouse faded into silence._

Yes, he remembered. Tony needed to believe that _some_ things transcended shock-induced comas.

\------

Steve served them up massive portions, promptly attacking his plate without even a half-hearted pass at saying grace.

Tony was relieved; he had always known Steve to be a different entity entirely from his god-fearing reputation.  

"This is so sweet; I didn't know you could cook Italian. I haven't had anything close since my grandmother died." Which was true, and almost sadder than truth.

Just the steam drifting up from his plate was indicative of a totally lost world. A place where he had the basement to himself to tinker and there were still plenty-awkward forehead kisses to shrug away from in his future. 

"Stevie's mama's side married into a family from Palermo." Exchanging a triumphant glance with Steve, who shook his head rapidly in response, trying not to smile.

_Okay, then._

"Didn't know what ya liked," Steve supplied gently, "but Buck had his money in the right place."

"Always do, Rogers, best you don't go forgettin' that."

Bucky winked in Tony's direction, causing his cock to jump in his pants traitorously, even as he took another steaming bite.

Wanting more than instinct and stronger than injury to get down on his knees and _crawl_ over between Bucky's outstretched legs, splayed inviting. To lick clean his fingers and feel that rewarding touch in his hair.

"Um, yeah. I'll keep that in mind."

Silence lapsed while they ate, occasionally pausing to sip from their beers, Tony's eyes glued to the place where Steve's bare foot massaged the crest of Bucky's ankle. 

Familiar, solicitous. A habit formed of years spent together in close quarters, before T.V. and smartphones and instant porn. 

 _They had to make their own fun_ , Tony established, and suddenly it got so bad he was shifting uncomfortably in his chair. 

Partly as a distraction and partly because it had just hopped back into his mind during the lull, Tony initiated what would be referred to by Pepper fondly as _business gab_.

"So I've been thinking about your prosthesis, Bucky."

Tony definitely commanded some attention with that phrase. Steve's arm rose to drape protectively over the back of Bucky's chair, ready to launch itself into the conversation. Bucky seemed to twitch instinctively for the arm currently M.I.A. in Ukraine, nerve endings too destroyed by fire to consider using again.

They'd need to start fresh, and for Tony, that was his perfect in.

_After all, he better than anyone knew what it was like to stumble around with someone else's metal on your body. The smell of it, the heat._

"What about it?" Bucky's voice sharp with curiosity rather than the venom Tony expected. 

"We can find you a new one. A _better_ one." Pausing for Bucky's nod to keep going.

"Lighter, faster, _sleeker_. More feeling when you want it, less when you don't. Warmth sensors. Hidden guns like the ones in my suit." 

They exchanged a wry smile. Apparently Bucky remembered things too, as it were. 

Tony gained momentum from that fact alone. 

"Slap your fingerprints from '42 on the surfaces. You'll be able to do cool 21st century shit like access the apartment by touch command."

Steve's eyes darted to Bucky's with a panic that told Tony he hadn't considered how _that_ inequality would go over, when they put the codes in the door. 

Bucky laughed gently, rolling his eyes. Seeming to telegraph, _not made of glass, Rogers_ , and obviously not for the first time. 

"I've actually had Jarvis take care of a few legal formalities. As of right now, Project Lacertus is already yours in prototype. Meaning you own the licensing, and you'll need to sign me the rights before I can actually work with you on it."

Tony drew in a long breath. This was the hard part, but he cared, and he gleaned more from Bucky trusting him than any engineering feat could fulfill. 

"If you'd rather outside personnel, I'll bring together a team of engineers for the Project. Jarvis can vouch that they will be the best in their field and more importantly, they'll _keep their mouths shut_.

I'm passionate about getting this perfect, but fuck what I want. This has to be one hundred percent on _your_ terms." 

The silence hanging over the table read as less than promising, only getting worse when Bucky stood up abruptly.

"Buck, wait-" quickly he advanced towards Tony, who realized with a rush of fondness, he wasn't angry at all.

"Tony, you didn't have to, thank you, thank you, so fucking much, 'hated the old one anyway, thank you, thank you..."

They were lost in an embrace both careful of Tony's healing scars and brittlely close to cracking ribs. 

For a moment he could imagine what it must have been like for Steve as a scrawny kid, wrapped up in _all this_.

No wonder he worshipped the man.

"It's the least I can do after I destroyed the old one," Tony allowed.

"You were savin' my life, right, Stevie?" Bucky turned back to the table, where Steve was watching, beer in hand, positively _glowing_ at the sight of them together.

"Yeah, saw you two through the Command footage. Saved your six to next week." His expression was one of immense gratitude.

Sometimes, Tony recognized, Steve was so caught up in trying to let Bucky _think for himself_ that the most dangerous situations slipped through his control.

After a minute more of close-range squeezing, Bucky let him go.

Tony hadn't quite learned to appreciate the shredded-coconut smell of his hair until it was gone.

They sat back down, taking fresh drinks in hand. All that remained of Steve's careful meal was an empty basket and a heap of dirty plates. 

Between two super-soldiers, Tony surmised that happened a lot. 

"X-Files?" Steve prompted at length, sweeping Tony's dish away with a flourish, in the process brushing his wrist.

The contact was electric, making Tony burn with energy until it was all he could do to offer to clean up.

"Please. It's my _duty_." Steve had cooked; wasn't that how it worked?

"Nah, you're the guest tonight, Stark."

Steve sounded adamant, but some part of Tony still got a thrill from pushing him.

Admittedly, winding him up. Wanting to hear Steve say, _you're just askin' for it now_ , in that sex-made accent of his.

"I'd like to do it, really. Technically, you're the 'honored guests' at the moment."

The couple exchanged smirks, and Tony amended it in his head to _dishonored_ guests.

Bucky rose swiftly, parking himself next to the sink. 

"A'right, Stark, but I'm helpin' ya dry." 

\------

Bucky was _thoroughly_ enjoying the view as Steve bent to load the DVD player.

Sprawled on the couch next to Tony (who was hopefully doing the same) he readied himself to rescue Steve from the pitfalls of modern technology. 

Only this time, he didn't struggle like the cardiac-arrest-candidate-octogenarian he was.

Smooth as anything the disc slid into the player, and after a good meal and a few drinks, even that was enough to get Bucky started. 

"Nice dinner," he commented as Steve settled in beside them.

"Well, it wasn't _fondue_ , but you know." 

Sandwiched next to them Tony practically _wriggled_ with delight at being included in the joke, thigh raking over Bucky's through layers of fabric. 

Automatically Bucky crossed his legs, trying to hide the fact that he was poking through his sweatpants.

"Gotta pee, Buck?" Steve asked cheerfully, knowing exactly what was ailing him. 

"Nah, just practicing the stuff from that article you showed me on 'mindful positions' the other day."

That part was true enough, and Steve's cheeks burned that they were exorcising this _now_. 

Bucky left BDSM catalogs on the counter in plain sight of _anyone_ , with goddamn pictures circled, so of course Steve made his fair share of recommendations.

A less than subtle hint that hadn't diminished in style since the forties. 

"As I seem to recall, Buck, you always _loved_ your  _magazines_."

Tony's eyes darted like he was following the CNN scroll, trying to keep up between them but still unsure what he was looking for. 

 _You're making me hard,_ Bucky almost supplied, just to put him out of his misery, but Steve had drilled it into his head to wait for the so-called right moment. 

"I procured the discs for tonight chronically; assuming that is your preference, Captain?"

"Sure, Jarvis, whatever works."

\------

_"Scully, you're impenetrable."_

Tony sat lifeless, barely daring to breathe. When he did, it was shallow, even-keeled. 

_Didn't want to look like he was staring, but in the dark would it matter?_

Steve's face was bathed in T.V. glow, Bucky wrapped around him leg-to-leg like a vine. 

Steve shifted to accommodate Bucky outright on his lap, moaning just low of intoxicating at the sudden pressure on his hips.

Hardly leaving space in Tony's brain to formulate _holy shit_ before Bucky's thigh was a warm weight against his side. 

The force of Steve grinding himself upwards into Bucky's ass jostling the couch springs into a deft crescendo, even as they shushed each other desperately.

"Stevie, he's asleep." Under his lashes, Tony observed the assertive tilt to Steve's hand in his hair, growing tighter with inspiration.

"How do you know that, huh?"

Cause he's breathin' like a baby, Steve."

"Oh, James, I thought you were a spy." 

Tony's blood rushed cold-then-hot in his veins. Praying not to be discovered, or worse, to give himself away. 

Fighting the crush against his boxers with every ounce of willpower, doing everything not to break out into a sweat. 

"What if he isn't?" Steve supplemented, eyes liquid fire.

Bucky sped the pace of his hips, kneading around the surface of Steve's crotch and eliciting something closer to a  _growl_ from Steve's wet lips. 

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Don't sass me, James." Something told Tony that the fingers around Bucky's throat weren't for show.

For Tony, that was the most beautiful epiphany on Planet Earth. 

"Not sassin' ya, punk, just wanna know," Bucky's voice hitched, forcing him to pause for what little air Steve's fingers afforded. " _Please_?"

"'Right, since ya asked so nicely." Steve settled into his role, face hardening, postured pulled up at the seams. 

Borrowing from Captain America in a way both enlightening and _delicious_. 

"What if he's curious 'bout us, wants to know for sure what we do behind closed doors? Maybe he's heard you shoutin' my name through the walls so hard he thought maybe I was _killin'_ you.

Always did get so noisy when your clothes came off."

Steve fondled a nipple through Bucky's rucked-up shirt, demonstrating his point. 

"But he knew it wasn't anything close to killin', 'cept maybe ' _petite mort'_. If he asked you right now, what would you say we do, James?'

"You sort me out." Steve's grip flexed at that, and Bucky _choked_ , a harsh wet sound that echoed over his own stunted whimpers.

"James. What have we said about details?"

"They're important, Stevie", he stammered, eyes wild, and a look passed Steve's face that bordered on _frenzy_.

Tony felt eyes trained on him through the dark, desire palpable in the shadows.

"You tryin' to wake him up? So he can see you like this? My fingers around your neck and you drippin' for more?"

Bucky nodded, squirming in a gesture that rippled across the couch and straight to Tony's cock.

"Both of you in front of me, wouldn't get any better than that. Bet Tony'd be the hottest little thing in a collar, leashed right to your side, jerking him around like he was misbehavin'." 

Bucky let out a whimper that turned into a moan as Steve pulled his sweatpants down, bunched around Bucky's knees like a layer of ropes.

Limiting him in his thrusts, forcing him to take only what Steve was willing to give, which was precious little, even as far gone as they were.

If it had been Tony in his position, he would've exploded ten minutes ago, sweaty bucking hips and all.

"Stevie, _let me ride you_ , make it good for ya."

"Oh James, that wouldn't be any fun for Tony, would it?" Again that predatory shiver down his spine at the danger of it all. 

"Would take him, too, on my hands and knees if he wanted."

"What if I ordered _you_ to fuck him?"

"I-I'd be grateful, Stevie." 

Steve laid a hand on his dick, bobbing with the force of their movements.

He stroked him with such a rough hand that it elicited a pained yip, unmuffled and clearly by surprise.

Quickly Steve stifled the noise with his fingers, but it was enough to cut off Bucky's oxygen and send him into a tailspin of pleasure. 

His eyes rolled back into his head, and Tony saw he was an _inch_ from coming, if that. 

"Did I tell you to blow our cover, James?"

"No, 'm sorry, Stevie," he answered, shaking and huffing for air. 

Steve fumbled with his pants, almost giving up before the clasp finally surrendered.

To Tony's fascination Steve took both of their cocks in one massive hand, bearing down almost _too_ hard with the twist of his wrist that only got more heated. 

"I imagine he really is awake right now, James, and he's loving every minute of this." 

Tony wanted to nod his head, to whimper, to do  _something_ to let them know that what they had was real.

"He's not the kind who switches, I don't think you quite grasped that yet, Buck. He's the kind who lives to be dominated. He'd be getting off on this so hard because he still doesn't think he's worthy of us."

"B-but he is."

"Is he? Don't lie to me. Wouldn't it be _so_ sweet to make him work for it? Watch him feed off the praise, offa being good for us?"

"He'd like to be praised, Stevie?" Hesitant, broken. Almost like it couldn't be true.

Tony realized then what he hadn't expected at all: Bucky dreamed of the chance to spoil _him_. 

"Course he would, honey, as much as you like actin' up. He'd _bleed_ to be anything you asked. He took a bullet so you could be here tonight."

"He did, he did, I want to make him feel _so_ fucking good, pay him back,  _Stevie_..." 

Bucky was close to tears and closer to the edge of orgasm, built-up and oversensitive from the collateral of vulnerable emotions that went with aching for someone sitting  _right there_. 

"He'd let you fuck him so deep, Buck, right into his belly. You'd be warm like you've never been before. Pull the leash nice and snug so Tony'd be at an angle, so'as I could kiss the both of you's senseless."

Steve was trembling now, hand seeming to flay them apart and bring them together again all in the space of a shadowed heartbeat, meted out over Bucky's breathy whispers of _Tony, Tony, Tony, please._  

Drawn like a moth to the thought of answering his pleas, of submitting to him and Steve, and being a part of it,  _no going back_. 

Ready to come in his pants untouched, ready to do something _crazy_ , just needing one more breath to take himself higher and retreat into that place where everything buzzes and pain feels so good. 

Tony hadn't felt this alive, for all he was worth, in forever.

"Buck, oh god, Buck, I can't hold out, I'm gonna, Buck-"

Steve bit back a moan, sinking his teeth into Bucky's tender neck, faded by bruises and clean sweat, and Bucky was plunging with him, Tony watching for the first time their faces, their _expressions_. 

Steve's eyes scrunched shut, his mouth drawn open in an o-face that was nothing short of sin.

Rocking away from Bucky's lap like it almost hurt, it was so much. 

Bucky's hair a damp curtain before he moved to kiss Steve, to bring him back, riding the waves of his own orgasm in full-force, looking whited-out and practically delirious.

Tony caught a glimpse of Bucky in profile as they convulsed together, red-faced, and was he _crying_?

"Stevie, _oh god_."

"I know. Buck, I know."

They collapsed into each other's arms, harshness dulled by satisfying what they needed to say to Tony, if only when he couldn't hear.

_But he heard, and he knew, and he thought by now he must know it all._

Only, The X-Files kept rolling in the background, and it was two o'clock _already_ , and he could feel them about to wake him up to stumble across the hall. 

Still too hard to stand up, sleep a weak excuse for the panting, almost-there look that would be across his face when the lights came on.

_Thinking of Steve putting him on his knees, Bucky yanking him into place. The way they would start slow, and let him prove he could be good..._

The couch shifted, and Tony felt the warmth beside him change into something solid, snapping him out of his head.

"Tony, baby, you can open your eyes."

 


	6. The One Where Worlds Collide

 

It stopped being a metaphor a long time ago, that Tony was always in the dark.

Demons marching around him that he knew almost _too_ well.

_Hey, wanna talk about it?_

Jarvis extinguished the DVD player, tactful as ever, leaving them silhouetted against a backdrop of shifting city lights.

Bucky's obligatory night-light shed little evidence over the long shadows of the room, walls claustrophobic in its wake.

Tony felt he had to say _something_ soon, or they'd start to close in on him, picture frames and all. 

"Seriously, guys?"

In the moment it took Bucky to force himself not to bite out something sarcastic, Steve was already across the couch, jaw set.

Analyzing Tony's pupils with a casual observance, letting him ever so slightly know he was picking his brains.

Tony in turn searching for reassurance that it wasn't a sick joke, what they told him. Hands a tense vice on either side of the cushions. 

"Yeah, _seriously_. Think we'd put on a show like that for anyone else?"

\------

Tony panicked every waking second; running from the inevitable, putting off decisions as long as humanly possible. 

Stumbling through the world with a smudged lens, bottle in hand, grin plastered on.

So to try and be calm, it almost _hurt_. 

"What are you even offering me? Cause if it was just _that_ , I don't want it." 

Steve carded through his hair, assuming the position where he stretched his forearms over his knees and forced optimism like a tough lock.

Bucky continued to pace at the window, fingers flipping his lighter, eyes gone past the balcony, lost out into the night.

"Then what  _do_ ya want, Tony?" 

_For you to say hello to me at meetings. For someone else to deal with the coffeemaker, once in a while. For nothing much but what I really need._

"Just to feel like a part of things, I guess."

Steve buried his grimace in his hands, but Bucky turned, tears tracing down into soft fabric.

Looking like two years ago and seventy-two at once. 

He hurdled the table to sink into a kneel by Tony's side, taking hold of his shoulder, right at the neck, so there was no fidgeting away.

To say it was with intensity that Bucky spoke would be a vast understatement. 

"You're not in Afghanistan, anymore, baby. It's time to own yourself. _I'm_ owning the fact that I'm shit-crazy enough about  _you_ to go through with tonight."

Bucky paused, his hand traveling up to brush back Tony's damp hair, smiling wide when he nuzzled back into the comfort.

"We're offering you _unconditional_ here, baby, so you can tell us what you're _really_ lookin' for."

Steve shifted nervously.

_Stoicism breaking down with the prolonged silence that every moment put the truth more and more out of reach._

Outside the Tower it started to rain in earnest, and Tony tried again, hoping eventually to get it right. 

"I _want_ to prove that I can be good for you, in ways that aren't exactly...conventional. I want to be the only one in the world who can do _those_ things for you, make you feel like you're being fucking _worshipped_ with control."

"I want to be open about what we are to each other. _Please._ I don't want to have to watch you making love to each other with the olives in your drinks from across the room 'cause it would be weird trying to explain this."

"It'd hurt more than being alone, if I was with you and it still felt like I was on the outside."

"I want you to give me all the unconditional shit. Starting now, I want to hear stories, and I damn well want to meet Peggy, _for Christ's sake_." 

"And...when I'm a disaster, I want to be able to remind myself, 'stead of drinking, I have a home to crawl back to."

Tony finished, pain written on his face deeper than the laugh lines of his smile. Only relaxing when Steve shot him a wink, trying to lighten them up a little. 

Giggle-crying as he answered, "You next, smart ass."

"What, _me_?"

"Just talk, Stevie, you're good at it." Bucky supplied, falling on his ass at the foot of the couch.

He laid his head against Tony's leg, eyes clenched shut to better listen.

Hand snaking a circle around Steve's ankle, punctuated by an encouraging squeeze.

"I guess-well, no, I _know_ I want you, Tony Stark, all day, every day, no matter what. I want to take control for you in the same way that I do for Bucky, when it's too much. I want you to trust me and see through me and help me to be less angry about what happened."

Almost to himself, Steve amended, "How can I be angry, anyway, when I'm lookin' at the two of you?"

"Stevie..." Bucky insisted.

"I'm getting there, baby."

"Tony, I want you to treat our apartment like a half of yours. I want a code to the lab for when the sun's coming up and you're still down there giving yourself an ulcer. I want you to teach me how to get the Wif-i, and for the love of god, if Jarvis calls me 'Captain Rogers' one more time  _I'll_  invade Earth."

"Okay," Tony assented shakily.

Bucky nodded, petting his hair into Tony's leg, the smell of coconuts drifting over them like a charm. 

"Buck?' Steve prompted.

"Same goes for me about the Jarvis thing."

They laughed, relieved and loose-limbed. 

"I'm wild about ya, Tony, just in who you are. You're the only one I've thought of  _like that_ , cause I know you want it so bad. And cause Steve will be taking care of us both."

They glanced at each other, desire stronger than a few seconds before.

"Not to say I'm crazy about what happened, but I appreciate the dark shit we've been through. It feels like you hear me even when I don't talk, like Stevie. That was the first thing I learned to _want_ , after Hydra."

Bucky leveled his gaze until Tony was staring straight down into the eyes of a man who died in the forties. 

"I _know_ you remember what Howard told me in the Alps. He turned out to be sort of an asshole, and I still don't have any big answers, but I'm gonna treat you so fucking _good_ , it won't matter to anyone where we come from."

Tony recognized the words of a different time from the glimmer around them, and by Steve's whispered _I love you._ Their words, shared with him. 

"And another thing. Steve over here's gonna hate me sayin' this, but I'm not the little spoon. Just a heads up."

Steve reached down to mock-pry Bucky's fingers from his leg, betrayed by a vicious blush.

Tony allowing after a moment, "I think I can get used to that."

\-----

"How long did we sleep?"

"You, twelve hours. Steve and I, seven, eight tops."

Tony groaned, rolling over so he was prostrate on his back. Bucky materialized into view, all charm and drying hair.

 _Holding a shot of espresso, as if_ that _would cement last night's deal._

"Thanks for letting me go. I haven't slept like that in...months, minus the coma." 

The reference for Bucky's benefit because now he knew, who'd kept vigil and who'd handled the press.

Tony downed the coffee in one gulp, setting the cup on the nightstand with a mock flourish. 

Bucky bowed extravagantly, turning as if to swan dive out into an adoring crowd.

He crash-landed next to Tony in the sheets, turning to stroke his beard and share the humor waiting to happen in his smirk.

"Funny, I was beginning to think you just crammed it in all at once like you were going into hibernation."

They winked in unison, Steve following a beat later with a shouted "that's what he said!" from the bathroom.

Tony projecting with laughing eyes, _this is exactly what I meant when I said I wanted a home_.

"Steve, I'm gonna kiss him now, so if you want to watch, you better get in here!"

Quicker than Tony had ever seen him move in battle, Steve ambled out to the edge of the bed.

Toothbrush hanging from his lips and spilling onto his shirt, he looked about as pulled together as Tony felt.

"Well?" he slurred, and Bucky's eyes hit the ceiling.

"Romance, Rogers. Get some."

"Yeah, Steve, you'd think in ninety years you would've-"

_Familiar, he'd thought about Bucky's hand in his. Now it was, divine, maybe? Words lost themselves in the sensation._

Soft lips and chafing, insistent swipes of skin-on-skin. Nothing like he expected of _Bucky;_ a slow fire.

Burning out of him the memory of loneliness and replacing it with the love of pleasure so satisfying it radiated your toes.  

A hand on his face smoothing down un-doctored five o'clock shadow, angling his chin up to taste the tip of Bucky's tongue against his teeth.

Almost by instinct, Tony's mouth fell open, and they were feeling out the most intimate parts of each other. Stargazing for the moment when they'd part and Steve's reaction would be on display. 

_It was full-bodied, real as a bullet and serious as a heart attack and how had Bucky ended up with a leg over his hips, kneading expertly at his ass?_

Tony pulled away with a tragic reluctance, huffing for air and hard enough that he was trembling from the fingertips.

Bucky pointed for him at Steve, who sat with a wet toothbrush in his lap and a hand hovering over his crotch, face flushed to the hairline.

_He couldn't decide whether he wanted to pump his fist in the air or dissolve into tears._

"Okay, Stevie, your turn."

\------

Steve's mouth tasted sweeter, chased with fake mint and arousal, claiming him with a surreal passion formed of _years_. 

"God, you're so good," he whimpered. 

Tony's spine shivered to the ends of his nerves and Bucky, watching with a hand on his chest, picked up on that one instantly.

"He liked the praise, didn't ya?"

Tony nodded through his lips and Steve pulled him from the semi-painful position where he was still contorted around Bucky.

The sheer  _heat_  brewing under his t-shirt shocked Tony, but it healed in equal measure _._  

_The kind of tactile comfort that tricks you into coming back for seconds while you're still there._

"How did you get so handsome?" Tony asked, a freak slip-up caused by circumstance more than anything.

Regretting it the moment the words passed his lips. 

"There's somethin' called a serum, honey, maybe you've heard of it, once or twice?" Bucky deadpanned, continuing to play Tony's patented low-light arc reactor like a piano, authoring all sorts of shivery, over-sensitive sensations.

"If you don't hurry up and get a little lower I might die," Tony returned, pointedly ignoring Bucky's back-sass and Steve's accompanying snort. 

"Alright, alright. Who's in charge here, anyways, baby?" 

Definitely not Tony, but neither was Bucky, just to look at him. 

Steve sifted himself out of the curve between Tony's neck and shoulders, raising his hand with a provocative smirk. 

"Me, and you're both mouthy as hell, in my opinion." 

Steve slapped their asses in tandem, eliciting a little more than a jerk from Bucky and a little less than a shout from Tony.

"Sorry, Tony, dominant hand."

As if they could pretend it was power, and not the illusory lack of it, that took Tony for a ride.

"Safewords?" Bucky reminded, hand ghosting along the hair that crested Tony's navel. 

"Chitauri," Steve and Tony answered at once, and Bucky's eyes questioned, but received no forthcoming answers.

" _K' then_ , mine's Hydra, don't wear it out."

 _Tony secretly wondering if he made it_ that _so Steve wouldn't try to initiate a therapy session while they were ramming..._

"Wait, why'd you use-" 

Unannounced, Bucky's hand slid into Tony's boxers, finding his dick between layers of silky _Armani_ and an equally Italian amount of dark curls.

He jerked halfway out of Steve's grip, held back by strong arms on his shoulders, and there was no _thinking_ anymore.

"So you wanna be good for me? That makes one of ya," Steve gestured vaguely across the bed.

"Hey, what can I say?" 

"Hush, baby," Steve throated, voice dark, "and get in position, _now_."

Bucky wriggled away from Tony until he sat upright, hand clasped behind his back, spine ramrod straight. 

Tony counted vertebrae as Steve rose to his feet, appraising.

"Want to watch, Tony? Get goin' before we start on you?" 

He nodded around the lump in his throat, following Steve's direction to a wing-backed chair with the best view.

_Ready for what happens next._

\------

Bucky kept up the chant in his head, _tall,_ be _tall_. 

The world of difference Tony's gaze made asserted itself as a twinge of arousal in his gut, almost unbearable already.

His dick bobbed and he realized with an ebbing relief that Steve was going to make it extra hard, this time.

"James, gonna count for me or should Tony?"

"He should." 

"Hear that, baby?" Tony's hand shot out as if to caress Bucky's flank, grateful for the inclusion.

"I'm counting when you're serving," Tony sounding so _Brooklyn_ that Steve almost broke character.

"Alright, prepare yourself, James."

Bucky's shirt and boxers fell to the floor, heaped and easily forgotten. 

He shuffled for a second, naked and armless in front of Tony for the first time, until Steve drew his chin up and kissed him, deep. 

He still couldn't resist turning to seek reassurance, Tony's expression of beside-himself desire telling the whole story.

The strap looked feather-light, but it certainly didn't caress Bucky where it landed. 

Welts sprang to the surface of his back, one after another, as Steve unmercifully pushed, Tony uttering numbers without feeling his lips move.

Lost in the vicarious pleasure of getting in Bucky's head, watching the jump of muscle from where he posed in the sheets, contorted then boneless.

Blissful and far-off, hovering next to a zone totally removed from reality, where there was nothing but warmth, _safety_. 

_Like a promise to him, we're gonna make you feel that and more._

"Twelve," Tony gasped, and Steve sped up.

The red streaks appeared almost in tandem with the _crack_  of the strap slicing air and Bucky winced now, all out _moaned_ with a particularly sharp contact.

"Tony's enjoying himself." The bulge showing through his boxers, untended but persistent, was some dead giveaway.

The rest might've been the near _string of drool_ he had to catch, embarrassed but too focused to care.

"Oh _James_. You mark up damn  _pretty._  Too bad it fades so quick."

Tony noted, yes the earlier streaks had vanished, but they'd been replaced, too.

_Marveling at the ability for equilibrium, when the power was all in one court and seemingly another._

"Fifteen."

"Need more, James?" 

"Just one," he rasped back.

The strap sang again, and the air around them fizzled as Bucky let out a shaky breath, unfurling himself.

When he peaked out from behind his healing back, Bucky revealed a prominent erection and a pair of eyes _so hungry_ they took Tony prisoner.

They panted together for a beat, Steve bringing them back to center.

"James, want to take your turn in the lead?"

Bucky nodded, bringing Steve to his side for a peck on the shoulder, reverent, still playing his role.

" _Yes_ , thank you."

\------

Tony was evicted from his seat, Steve joining him halfway to the bed with a leg-shaking kiss that clattered teeth together. 

"He'll be gentle, he knows how you like it. And we'll do colors, okay, baby?"

"Thank you, _thank you_ ," Tony echoed, and then Bucky tilted a hand to his back.

"Boxers off, baby, and you too, Stevie, no clothes when we're doin' this."

Tony watched as Steve stripped, waiting until he had their attention to get naked.

_Wanting to remember the moment like it was yesterday._

Steve's eyebrows soared, while Bucky, irreverent to the core, fucking  _whistled_.

"Oh baby, we didn't know we had that to look forward to."

"You groped him," Steve pointed out to Bucky, half-jealous.

"He's _gorgeous_  ass-bare. Didn't get the full effect." It was weird, hearing himself spoken about in the third person.

Tony knew it was something Bucky would  _hate_ , but he couldn't help how much it turned him on.

_They certainly knew, the way Bucky smirked._

"Gorgeous and such a good boy, right?"

Tony nodded eager assent, and Bucky instructed him as to how to sit, where, and what position to take.

He followed command to the letter, and was praised gently by Steve as Bucky left the scene, disappearing into the closet for the space of a second.

"Tony, you okay with this?" 

In his hand was a coil of soft rope, not twine but...some sort of compacted string? It was black, with flecks of blue, and to Tony that seemed perfect.

"Yes, please."

His hands went easily behind his back, as Steve kept up the praise, right hand massaging his own dick.

Stroking lazily up and down, not minding the heat as much as Tony, who was close to panting from prolonged arousal.

"Unlike us, you probably can't break these. Color, baby?"

"Green," Tony supplied without prelude, blushing.

"Okay, good boy. Now get down, that's it, ass up."

Bucky admired him ravenously, turning over his shoulder with a smirk.

"Stevie, what'cha thinkin'?"

_Like he already knew._

"I think he needs to prove how good he really is."

"Is that right? He's so good on the eyes, maybe I took that for granted? How bout you use a finger, get yourself started?"

It was slow and painful, going in without lube or anything close to it.

_But Tony loved to burn, to ache; they knew on some other level._

Bucky watched with glazed eyes as Tony slid in and out of himself, face breathing in their scent from the sheets, filthy and finally _theirs_.

He shared a _holy shit_ glance with Steve, chased by the chill of lube in his palm.

"I'm gonna help you out now, baby, want that?"

"Yes, please."

Bucky backed flush against Tony, replacing his fingers with those coated in fluid, eliciting a hiss that echoed off the walls.

"So good, takin' it for me, it's so worth it, _all of it_ , when you almost hit _that spot_ and your goddamn _toes_ curl."

Tony moaned sideways across the bed, loud enough for Steve to catch the inflection of _need it now_.

"That's right, baby, I'm here for you," his fingers worked deeper, two and adding a third, "and I'm gonna fuck you, is that good?"

Tony whimpered a groan, half crying and half begging already, _fuck me harder, right there..._

"Bet you're real hot to be inside of, like a furnace burning from inside."

Tony nodded eagerly and forced himself back on Bucky's fingers, earning a heavy slap for his greed, sending his ass straight back into unrelenting pleasure.

"Oh _god_ , please!"

"Patience, baby, I'm gettin' there."

"James, do you think he's ready?"

"I don't know, Stevie, don't think he's quite convinced me..."

Tony hardly letting Bucky finish his sentence before interjecting differently.

"Please, please, _anything_ , I don't care, need it, _please_..."

A jump before lapsing into silence, and as Tony trusted only the men in his dreams to do, he was caught up with gentle kisses.

Bucky worked a line around his bound hands, pausing at the crest where ass met waist, smile flaming warm against sticky skin.

"Yeah, baby? You're gonna be ready, huh?"

Even as Tony nodded Bucky was shushing him with a wet tongue, forbidden in the crease that was _too_  sensitive on Tony, ticklish and tingling.

"I think he needs a little more, isn't that what you were getting at, Stevie?"

"Yeah, I think so Buck..."

Tony wished he was facing that wrecked voice just to watch the man behind it, expression screwed up and sweaty. 

Then Bucky's tongue replaced his fingers.

_He itched unbearably to flail, to do anything to break the mounting orgasm in his stomach that threatened to bubble over any second under that wet heat, high off the way Bucky lapped at him like the sweetest thing, open and pliant and all his._

"So sweet, honey, I could eat ya for _days_ ," Bucky broke out, and Tony knew he'd carry through with that, if only to torture him.

He whined ineffectually, clawing at his own back in an effort not to cry, not to breathe lest he drown.

_Tongue pulling him inside out, wavering like a sensitive itch, tugging at the periphery behind his balls that ached like lead to be touched and rubbed in his hot hand, to be layered over with spit and thick cum like a barrage and to fall victim to the same, twitching from exertion._

Bucky slid a finger in to stroke beside where his jaw flexed, and that was almost too much, bordering on that weightlessness that would rob Tony of his senses.

"Please, please, fuck me, _please_!"  

Only later would he ask Jarvis to answer the obvious; _was I shouting the whole time_?

"God, Buck, you gonna reward him, for beggin' so hard?"

"That what you want, to watch me fucking him into the mattress so there's nothin' he can do about it?"

"That's _exactly_ what I want, and you're gonna give me what I want, _right_ Tony?"

"Always, always, _sir_ , always."

Maybe Tony took it too far, but then Steve was stroking himself so wetly they could hear it across the room and Bucky was pressing his dick against Tony's laved asshole.

Moving like they were on fire, Bucky's heartbeat pulsing over the noise.

"Okay, baby, try to relax for me."

Tony did his best impression of someone who knew how to relax and apparently it worked because he felt Bucky push snug in one thrust, hips stuttering.

_Breath knocked out of them both, falling gasping to the sheets with strings cut and untethered limbs that refused to work except to push back into each other like interlocking gears._

" _Fuck._ Tony, that's it baby, spread for him," Steve narrated, voice ringing with desperation.

_Hips set impossibly wide, Bucky's sharp-cut hips flush with his own ample ass, and as it shook his hands bounced, only held down by Bucky's fingers around the cord, guiding and grounding, gentle with offbeat flutters up the length of his arms, into his hair where he bled sweat and where he could be ripped up into a kiss splitting him in half like a favorite song with two choruses._

Steve came first. Fucking harsh into his own fist so the palm would still be red when it came to Tony's cheek.

"Buck, oh god, both of you, goddamn beautiful..." 

Tony unconsciously trying to twist around, held back by Bucky's hand on his throat, light, reminding. 

"Stay here with me, baby, right here is where we are."

_Grinding into his prostate until Tony did forget, warm most on the inside but skin unbearable and ready to peel off of him like flypaper, riddled with holes from where he'd been rubbed raw with want._

"Can I...can I?"

Before Tony could even trip out the words Bucky's hand flew to his dick, stroking with a feverish force, tearing Tony's orgasm from his stomach and making his eyes lose concentration on the walls surrounding them.

_Almost too much, not enough, Bucky still inside him, grasping at air, brain on frayed wires, tongue thick and screaming someone's name._

Awake and sober to feel Bucky sliding off his back, cum striping his legs, kisses against his neck that tasted like liquid smoke and the haze before dawn when you've driven all night to make it home. 

_Home. Steve shuffling over with a pair of scissors, freeing him but not yet examining for marks. Giving Tony the space to process, to enjoy the tiny sparks climbing down his spine that resulted in little jerks against Bucky's back, held tight so nothing could shake them apart._

Whispers in his ear that weren't soft. Filthy promises of unfulfilled things to descend over them in time like the adoration they had, so completely, for Tony.

_In his vulnerability, tears of over-emotion leaking out to flood his ears, Tony's own murmurs grew stronger, pieced together by addled logic into his simplest statement yet._

"I want more." 


	7. The One Where They Go to a Diner

_You're kiddin', right?_

It wasn't that he was insatiable; far from it.

Compared to two ab-flexing supersoldiers, Tony was practically a stay-at-home mom. 

Pushing eggs across his plate over the cacophony of two espresso machines and a deluxe microwave.

Imagining, _I must look so silly trying to be something these guys might want._

Too early to say I love you.

_Too late to pause before thinking it._

_\------_

Bucky barely caught Tony's stolen glance, eyes stealing to the side with a reverence that hit like a punch to the chest.

Wondering what the fuck entitled him to _that_.

"Hey, kid, you know how hot you are?" It was almost unbearable, the way Tony's face lit up.

"Look at yourself," he mumbled, clearly embarrassed.

Unmentionable flash-forward images dripping into Bucky's brain; fevered kisses and sin slipping down the side of a bottle. 

"Hmm?", he asked abruptly, scarcely catching the fact that someone was speaking at all.

"I said," Steve interjected, attuned to Bucky's frequency and smirking with the knowledge, "maybe we could see about a date."

"Like the fruit?" Tony muttered. Separated by disbelief, further away than the table's edge and somehow out on a limb.

_Hardened against hope even in the safest moments. Worried, glancing over his shoulder._

Dark thoughts scalded the distance between them, Tony breathless to acknowledge a warring mix of paralysis and pain.

Bucky quick enough to surmise, of course there'd be unfazed doubts so early on.

_Problems don't just die with a morning's fuck. Had he ever learned that the hard way._

Sending Steve a private look charged with plentiful yearning, angling for him to follow through on their half-moaned whispers of home.

_Three mugs on the counter and no one sitting apart-that's the deal._

"Hey, you got something better to do?" 

Bucky's voice alight with unnerving conviction, backed by the warm disquiet of Steve at his side.

Willing Tony to take them as insurance against the future, to find a final peace in so many underwritten promises.

_We'll show you it ends happy this time. Baby, we will._

"You'd be seen with me?"

From under the cover of his crossed arms, Tony sounded raked, vulnerable. Ten years older and fifty drinks cleaner.

Fuck if Bucky ever sympathized more. Seeing in his defeated posture a too-real reflection of Steve's charcoal past.

Settling whose fault it was with a grim stoicism, after his, after the Alps. Possessed by an age-old superstition born of helpless tragedy.

Steve's vague, hollow guilt about bothering in the first place riddling their relationship with holes.

Keeping him guarded, weighed-down, bound by grief. 

An unending refrain of, _I have always been luckless, and it's only getting worse. I will live to curse everyone I care about._

Only after the ice did Steve's anxiety thaw into tenderness, melting towards a place of tentative touches, long-lived smiles.

_Burden lifted by the witness of redemption. Love outlasting emptiness, returning memories too good to die._

"'Course we want to be seen with _the_ Tony Stark," Bucky allowed, expression falling into tenderness at Tony's shaky acquiescence.

Peaking out from under his arms with the start of a smirk. As if to say, _thank you_.

Steve relaxed palpably, one hand diving under the vee of Tony's face-palm to deposit a steaming mug of coffee.

Coming out of it, Tony hesitated over the table, only to catch Bucky discrete gesture across the kitchen.

_Steve humming Rihanna while chopping strawberries, ass waving back and forth._

Tony realizing in a faint rush of adrenaline that they acted every moment out of care, picking apart past pain for a shot at togetherness.

Maybe even... _maybe love, after all?_

\------

"What is this place?" Tony asked, sneakers sinking in grease not two feet through the door.

"This, my futuristic lover, is a genuine-authentic New York relic. The Cup & Saucer." 

"Have a seat," Steve drawled, draping himself like a jacket over the counter.

Immediately came the appearance of a sallow-skinned waitress, hovering in Bucky's space.

"What'll it be, honey?" she crooned, clearly ignoring the context of his two still beefy, still beautiful lovers.

Steve met such single-mindedness with a knowing grin, but it was Bucky who talked the best game, pouring masculinity back into her carafe.

"Gonna have coffee, six bacon sandwiches. And fries, if ya got 'em, Sweets."

Sliding effortlessly into a stolen sense of pride, stretched and familiar like Tony'd never seen him.

_No need to make Tony aware. How rare a snatch of peace is in the finding._

Defined on its own terms, Brooklyn was always leaving behind the forgotten of city history.

Details disappearing under paint jobs and construction walkways, to be swept away by morning.

The waitress scattered, abandoning them to an elated atmosphere of secreted jokes. Half giddy, half relieved.

"Established in 1940," Steve continued, "the Cup & Saucer attracted the patronage of many a penny-pinching Jew."

Bucky took a long swallow both fortifying and scalding, then promptly snorted it back up at Steve's remark.

Tony's interest in the brewing feud advanced by the desire to simply watch and learn. 

_Basking in the light of a new era shed on its same old customers. Wondering, if he'd been born into that world..._

"A finer establishment than the War, sure as hell. Wasn't all the Chosen. Sometimes those broody starving artist types."

"Not starving in this place," Steve rejoined. Arranging spilled sugar into an arc around his side of the booth in lieu of a mock rebellion.

"Starving for something," Bucky muttered, eyes darkly alight and untouched by fear.

Casting a glance towards Steve that seemed to say, _this was our candlelight and roses, once upon a time_.

For Tony it was a case of fascist oppression, of forced decency when the prevailing idea was _order my clothes off, now_.

Overwhelmed by bafflement and lover's curiosity. _Feeling_ through their dynamic in a way stronger than before. 

 _An essential wartime partnership of sniper and Captain._ _More like, two scared kids fumbling in each other's pants under the formica._

If only for the image of Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes as horny teenagers, Tony was willing to scour the very corners of possibility.

"So that's why you brought me here?" Impatient to know that he'd guessed right and dying for a taste of it.

"'Said you wanted the full story," Steve admitted, reclaimed by former shyness like a living ghost.

Tony couldn't help but laugh outright, circumventing Bucky's protestations and Steve's backsliding awkwardness.

"This is by far the classiest proposition I've ever gotten," Tony lowered his voice conspiratorially, "for daylight diner fucking."

Lesser men would've been struck dumb, speechless and offended. As it were, Bucky's casual smirk turned to an expression of feral awe, and Steve found himself suffering on the painful side of arousal. 

Too-tight pants shifted until aching, unbearable. Their sudden silence nothing like the absence of communication.

_Three mouths giving oxygen to more than a hundred unspeakable thoughts._

"Well then," Steve breathed, leaning close enough to brush Tony's hair from his neck, the contact sweaty and disjointed but _so good,_ "that sounds a lot like you want us to have our way with you." 

Reeling, Tony could only bring himself to nod, hot enough to scorch and grinning for _miles_.

\------ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is smut incorporated!


End file.
